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SeedPublished 2026-10-26

Parcel lockers and the last mile

Last-mile delivery appears on 79 recent papers, and the topic is growing (23 papers in the last quarter against about 18 expected), but parcel lockers on only 6. Lockers and pickup points promise fewer failed deliveries and fewer van stops. Do customers use them, and do they cut cost and emissions once the trips customers make to fetch parcels are counted?

operations researchlogisticscities

What prompted this#

Since October 2025, 83 papers carry a last-mile, parcel-locker or pickup-point keyword (69 in operations research journals), with "last-mile delivery" on 79. The quarter to September 2026 had 23 such papers against about 18 expected. Only 13 carry a locker, pickup or collection keyword, and "parcel lockers" appears on 6.

Questions#

  • Where lockers were installed, what share of parcels moved from home delivery, and how far do customers travel to collect them, by car or on foot?
  • Do shared (carrier-neutral) lockers save more than each carrier running its own network?
  • How should prices or delivery fees be set to steer customers to lockers without losing them to competitors?

Data that could help#

Carrier data on deliveries and failed attempts by address, locker usage logs, and surveys or mobility data on how customers collect parcels.

Next step#

Compare failed-delivery rates and van stops per parcel in neighbourhoods before and after locker installation, using carrier data.

The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26
KeywordPapers, last 30 daysRankPapers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26*Papers, last 36 months
parcel lockers0–19
last-mile delivery14#67296

Markdown version of this note: /ideas/parcel-lockers-and-the-last-mile.md

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Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Parcel lockers and the last mile. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 26, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/parcel-lockers-and-the-last-mile

@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-parcel-lockers-and-the-last-mile,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Parcel lockers and the last mile},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/parcel-lockers-and-the-last-mile}},
  urldate = {2026-10-26},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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